Los Angeles history

Matt Weinstock, Feb. 1, 1960

February 1, 2010 | 4:00
pm

Different Way to Lose

Those who have learned the hard way will stipulate that race track betting is a snare and a delusion. Today we have with us reader G.S., who has a dynamic idea to unsnare and undelude it, well maybe a little.

He proposes windows for reverse betting where the suckers could select and support the horses that finish last, next to last and third from last. Win, place and show in reverse.

After all, he points out, the craps tables in Vegas have "don't pass" markings for customers who prefer to bet with the house.

He is certain reverse betting would get a tremendous play because so many horse players have shown such a remarkable talent for picking them that way. However, he wishes to emphasize that horse owners should continue to try to win the regular way. Otherwise, his idea could become more confusing than it sounds.

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A FRIEND asked retired policeman John (Chew Tobacco) Smith -- he almost always has an unlighted cigar in his mouth -- about his recent trip to northern California.

"The thing I noticed most," he replied wistfully. "was that signing my name on motel registers didn't cause quite the same reaction it did 40 years ago."

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IN CONTEMPT My culinary efforts are condemnedWhen I try to vary the menu.If I didn't love the judgeI'd request a change of venue. JUNE R. DRUMMOND

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HERE AND THERE the language is being punched around again. A Wilshire Blvd. store had a sale on ladies' loose-fitting sweaters which it advertised as "Better Bulkies" . . . A small grocery store on Sunset Blvd. has the contradictory name, Superette . . . And the west side market had a big "Steakarama Sale."

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THE MARTINI madness (should it be 3 to 1, 7 to 1, just wave the vermouth cork or should the olive, if any, have a pimiento stuck in its mouth) has busted wide open at Eddie Spivak's handsome new Redwood Restaurant on W 1st St. Bartender Art Linder serves Martinis with tiny pickled tomatoes speared on metal swords, instead of olives. And you know, fellow connoisseurs, they taste good. No, not the metal swords.

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AROUND TOWN -- An ad on the classified page for a male black German shepherd lost near Disneyland has the desperate line, "Return dog or adopt our kids." City Health Department envelopes have imprinted, "The Shadow Knows," reminiscent of an old movie thriller, but actually a reminder to people to get a chest X-ray . . . Carolyn Rabb likes the sign on a market on N Ave. 53 in Highland Park: "Buy Your Blue Chip Stamps Here. We Give Groceries."

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QUOTE & UNQUOTE -- Kendis Rochlen nominates as the most provocative song lyric of the moment the one in which a fellow who has lost his girl to another, whines, "I've forgotten more about her than you'll ever know." It kind of gets you . . . When his foot went to sleep, Alan Wolfson , 8, said to his mother, "My leg feels like ginger ale!" . . . Two more "rain in Spain" efforts: Stan Prime of Pasadena states that eye irritation in the basin is an abomination in this location. Jane Vidal of La Mirada wonders if the fog in Prague causes traffic clog.

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AT RANDOM -- Oops, the Reader's Digest article "My Fight for America's First Birth-Control Clinic" by Margaret Sanger is condensed from the magazine Together . . . A man whose driver's license was revoked recently asked for a hearing, which he is entitled to do under the law, and the other day he received a notice in the mail that his hearing has been granted and giving the date. He is happy about the opportunity to tell his story but he wishes the envelope from the MVD didn't have imprinted, ""Has your driver's license expired?" . . . As Sheldon White sees it: Miss Eva Marie Saint, pretty obviously ain't.